1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates generally to the field of data representation. More particularly, in one exemplary aspect, the present invention is directed to methods and apparatus for providing a network presence service utilized for contact information representation in e.g., user equipment devices.
2. Description of Related Technology
Address books, in an electronic form, are databases that are used for storing entries that are now colloquially known by users as “contacts”. Due to the ever growing list of capabilities of today's computing devices (such as desktop computers, laptops, smartphones and the like), the information stored in these contact entries has also grown such that individual entries now may include without limitation: (1) a name; (2) a picture associated with the name; (3) various phone number(s) (i.e., home, work, cellular, etc.); (4) e-mail address(es) (both personal and work-related); (5) fax number(s); (6) user name(s) associated with various services (i.e. instant messaging applications, Facebook™, Twitter™, etc.); and (7) various other related information associated with a user (i.e., birthdays, names of related family members, anniversary dates, etc.).
In addition to the large amount of information now stored within individual contact entries associated with a user's address book, the number of contacts stored in the user's address book has also grown such that there are often too many entries to be easily navigated. This results from a number of factors, including the intermingling of less frequently used contact entries among contact entries that are more commonly used. Furthermore, because contact entries are now frequently entered and shared during an initial meeting with a personal acquaintance or business associate (whether manually or electronically), these names tend to become forgotten by the user, making it difficult to later recall the name of that particular acquaintance or business associate, or how the user knows them.
Various methods and apparatus exist in the prior art for managing a user's contact list entries. For example, the Gmail™ webmail service provided by Google, Inc. allows a user to arrange contact list entries according to various user-defined groupings. However, these various groupings must be manually assembled by the user, and therefore have many of the same limitations of prior art address books as discussed above.
Other common address book implementations, such as the address book available in many existing smartphones, also include a search function which permits a user to navigate his or her address book by entering information associated with an entry (i.e., a contact entry's first or last name). However, the ability to locate specific contact information under this model is again predicated on the user's ability to accurately recall specific information about that entry.
Many of today's address books in cellular telephones or smartphones allow a user to arrange contacts by arranging contacts in special lists. For example, a user can have contacts arranged by those contacts which have been most recently dialed, from which the user has most recently received or most recently missed a call, etc., each sorted by date (and often time). However, these special lists are call-oriented, and thus they arrange contacts by information related to calls to the contacts that have taken place (or were supposed to be taking place), and are therefore predicated on either: (1) frequency of communication with a particular contact entry; or (2) proximity in time between a prior communication or attempted communication.
Based on the foregoing, improved methods and apparatus are needed for automating the grouping of contacts within a user's address book, so as to overcome many of the deficiencies present in prior art solutions as set forth above. Such improved methods and apparatus would ideally arrange contacts in a manner better associated with how a user thinks about his or her listing of contact entries, rather than merely organizing contacts in alphabetical order, by manually entered user-defined groupings, or by frequency/timing.
Moreover, such improved methods and apparatus would permit individual contacts to be associated with multiple distinct or inter-related group listings, so as to provide additional flexibility in the representation of these contact entries to a user.
Lastly, these improved methods and apparatus should ideally leverage existing hardware and software to the maximum extent possible so as to facilitate their implementation on existing or legacy devices, as well as minimize deployment costs.